The invention relates broadly to electrical connectors and more particularly to that specialized class of connectors which are increasingly required in computer interface equipment. Such equipment requires the frequent placement of individual test adapters with their multiple ranks and files of minute electrical contacts in operative engagement with the coacting electrical contacts of receivers. It is imperative that the receiver contacts and individual test adapter contacts engage with precision to minimize wear and to prevent damaging the delicate and expensive equipment.
The present invention seeks to satisfy the increasingly exacting demands of the art through provision of a very sturdy and durable precision mechanism which functions to engage the multiple ranks and files of electrical contacts, such as ball detent contacts with paddle contacts in a linear or straight-on mode as distinguished from other types of engagement where contacts initially move together in a first plane and then travel into final engagement in a second orthogonal plane.
In fulfilling the above need in the art, the present invention makes use of a receiver having an inner rectangular frame and outer side walls spaced from adjacent parallel sides of the inner frame. Fixed hanger plates equipped with straight guide slots whose axes are normal to the contact plane of the receiver are placed outwardly of precision slides in the spaces between the receiver outer walls and the sides of the receiver inner frame. The two slides are driven in unison by a single hand lever with attached torsion shaft, to the opposite ends of which are connected over-dead-center locking slotted drive linkages.
The coacting individual test adapter is equipped with opposite side pairs of dual rollers on common dry lube sleeves which enable the rollers of the pairs to rotate oppositely during the camming action to minimize friction. The slides also have dry lube elongated bearings for precision guidance with low friction during linear travel. Lateral play between the individual test adapter and the receiver is prevented by engagement of a single pilot pin in a broached opening near one corner of the assembly. Precision machining tolerances are required only in portions of the cam slots and not throughout the entire drive system for the slides.
While no known device in the prior art comes close to satisfying the requirements which the invention seeks to completely satisfy, the following prior United States patents of general interest only relative to the invention are typical of the known prior art and are referred to herein to satisfy the requirements of 37 C.F.R. 1.56:
U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,927,295, 3,217,284, 3,341,801, 4,134,631.
Other features and advantages of the invention will become apparent during the course of the following description.